Mexico and canada, and its now before them and theyll have to make a decision. But thats one the farmers love, the manufacturers love, the unions love. Its a great deal for this country, and nafta was i think one of the worst trade deals ever made. Made the wto was worse, the wto from the time that happened in 95. From the time that happened china baem like a rocket ship. It was pretty much flat lined and all of a sudden it joined the wto and they became i mean they went through the roof. And very much to our liability its we lost tremendous amounts of money over the from that time we just lost tremendous amounts. It was a terrible deal, wto world trade. And if you look at nafta, nafta has been a disaster for our
country. The usmca is a great deal for our country. I think canada is happy, but theyre not happy like were happy, but theyre very happy. Its a good deal for canada, a good deal for mexico. Mexico just approved it, and canada is waiting for us to approve it. And its with the Prime Minister just left him a little while ago, and theyre thrill would the deal and everybody wants it. And hopefully itll be a bipartisan deal. I told that to nancy pelosi. I said view this as a bipartisan deal because a lot of democrats want it i would say especially the farmers but really the Industrial Areas also. The unions, we have things on wages and the environment that few people have ever been able to get into an agreement. And its a very big deal. Its a very big deal, and its a great deal. Tremendous support so they have to put it up for a vote, and i
think youll get a great vote in the house and youll get a great vote in the senate. And youll have a tremendous trade deal between the United States and canada and mexico. And its going to be something very special. So we spent a lot of time with a lot of countries. We do business with a lot of them. Australia is an example. Japan, were negotiating with them because they send us millions of cars and we send them wheat, which doesnt work. But what happens is japan is you saw some of the things youre doing, but theyre opening up many Car Companies and factories and plants throughout our country especially in michigan. We have a lot of activity in ohio. Beyond japan activity we have a lot of activity now where companies are coming pack to our country with the hottest show in town. Were the hottest show in the world right now. Our economy is one thing that virtually every leader i dealt
with said congratulations, its incredible whats happened to the american economy. Were the best economy in the world. And it started from election day. I put it out yesterday because we took a trumepd s boost from the day after i got elected, the stock market went crazy from that point until essentially now. We hit the alltime high again for many, many times. I cant tell you what it was but many, many times we broke the record. And were our stock market is great, our jobs are great. Were at the best job numbers essentially weve had the minimum you could say is in 51 years but now its going to be more than that. Africanamerican, asianamerican, you saw that. Hispanic, american. The best numbers in history, the history of our country we have the lowest unemployment numbers, the best number. And many other steel Blue Collar Workers are doing fantastic. Theyre the biggest beneficiary of the tax cuts. Blue collar, we talk about for the rich and its really for everybody. And its also for Big Companies when theyre moving here. And remember who owns the stocks because the people who own the stock its not the Big Companies but numbers whose 401 ks are at all different numbers that are tremendously high where the other spouse thinks that the spouse thats investing in the 401k is a super genius, but those 401 ks are very high, but if youve been listening to what ive been listening to but with that kind of attitude their 401ks would crash and the market would crash. Because what they want to do you would crash the market and the amount of wealth that would be lost would be incredible. But id rather wait until later
in the campaign to say that, because to be honest with you i want them to go and take these policies i dont want them to change them anytime soon. But its very interesting to watch whats happening. With that, well take a few questions and then im heading out to south korea. And i may or may not see kim jongun, but well be heading out to south korea, spend about a day and a half there with president moon whos a really good guy. I saw him, i met with him also, and well see what happens. Mr. President , thanks so much for joining us here. We all appreciate it. Its always good to ask questions directly. Can you tell us more how this china deal may work Going Forward because chinese officials have told fox news
they will not make concessions until all the tariffs have been lifted. They want huawei, want you to take it off the black list. They want you to stop pursuing extradition. Can you tell us how you see all this unfolding and if you do meet kim jongun at the dmz tomorrow would you step across the border with north korea . Sure, i feel very comfortable doing that. I would have no problem. With respect to china, basically we agreed today we were going to continue the negotiation, which i ended a while back. And were going to continue the negotiation. We agreed i would not be putting tariffs on the 325 billion that i would the ability to put on if i wanted. That were you know, were fairly advanced depending on where you want to look at and where you want to start, pretty advanced. We discussed we did discuss numerous other thing. We mentioned huawei. I said well have to save that to the very end. Well have to see. One of the things i will allow, however, a lot of people are surprised we send and we sell to huawei a tremendous amount of product that goes into the various things they make. And i said thats okay, we will keep selling that product. These are American Companies, john, that make product. And thats very complex, by the way. Highly scientific, and in some cases were the ones that do it, and were the only ones that do it. Were the only ones with technology. What weve done in Silicon Valley is amazing actually, and nobodys been able to compete with it. And pretty easily ive agreed to allow them to continue to sell that product so American Companies will continue. And they were having a problem, the companies were not exactly happy they couldnt sell because they had nothing to do with whatever was potentially happening with respect to
huawei. So i did do that. We talked about education and students. Someone was saying it was harder for Chinese Students to come in, and thats something that if it were, if somebody viewed it that way, i dont. We want to have Chinese Students come and use our Great Schools our great universities. We did discuss it. It was brought up as a point and i said that would be just like anybody else, just like any other nation. And were actually going to a point where were looking for you graduate from a college because our Great Companies would talk about Silicon Valley and other places, we have a problem in our country that you graduate number one in your class from the best school in the country and they say you have to leave. We cant keep them. And were going to make it were going to call it the smart persons waiver, but were going to make it so that they can not
only stay but maybe they have access to green cards. Weve got to keep these people here. Sure, that could happen. But were holding on tariffs and theyre going to buy foreign product. But that could happen, john. This doesnt mean theres going to be a deal but they would like to make a deal. I can tell you that. And if we could make a deal, it would be a historic event. Weve never had a deal with china. Weve had tremendous deficits, tremendous amounts of money was put into china, 500 million a year. And i mean not just surplus and deficit, im talking about real hard cash. And it should have never, ever been allowed to happen for all of our president s over the last number of years. Go ahead, please. Yes, mr. President. From the voice of america. After your discussions with Prime Minister abe here are you
still thinking about withdrawing from the u. S. Japan security treaty, and what did the Prime Minister say to you about that . No, im not thinking about that at all. Im just saying its an unfair agreement and ive told him that for the last six months ive said, look, if somebody attacks japan, we go after them, and we are in a battle full force. In effect, we are locked in a battle and committed to fight for japan. If somebody should attack the United States, they dont have to do that. Thats unfair. Thats the kind of deals we made. Every deals like that. I mean its almost like we had people that they didnt either care or they were stupid. But thats the kind of deals we have. Thats just typical. I told them, i said were going to have to change it because, look, nobodys going to attack us i hope. But, you know, should that happen, its far more likely it could be the other way. But should that happen and somebody attacks us, if were helping them theyre going to have to help us and he knows that, and hes going to have no problem with that. Yes, please. Thank you, mr. President. I actually have a russia question, but i wanted to quickly clarify is case also going to need to wait until the very end, or is it possible the u. S. Would want to drop the extradition. What . Ms. May from we did discuss huawei, but we didnt discuss her situation. Thank you. On russia respectfully it seemed like maybe you didnt really mean it when you said yesterday dont meddle in our elections, mr. President and then you start laughing. Youre going to have to take a look at the words. I did say it, and we had actually a great discussion President Putin and myself. I thought it was really a trumenace discussion. I think theyd like to do trade with the United States and they have great product. They have great land. They have very rich land, a lot of oil and minerals and the kind of things we like. And i can see trade with russia, we could do fantastically well. We do very little trade with russia frankly. So i could see some positive things happening. As for your question, though, i did say it and i did discuss it a little bit after that, too. Yesterday former president jimmy carter suggested your presidency is illegitimate and you only got the white house with help from russia. Russia, russia, isnt it crazy . Jimmy carter, look, he was a nice man. He was a terrible president. Hes a democrat, and its a typical talking point. Hes loyal to the democrats, and i guess you should be. But as everybody now understands
i won not because of russia, not because of anybody but myself. I went out, i campaigned better, smarter, harder than Hillary Clinton. I went to wisconsin. I went to michigan the night of the vote. I had 32,000 people at 1 00 in the morning on election day. I won michigan, i won wisconsin, i won pennsylvania. I won states that traditionally havent been won by a republican, for many years havent been won by a republican. And this had nothing to do with anybody but the fact i worked harder and much smarter than Hillary Clinton did. Now, ill say this. Jimmy carter, i was surprised that he would make a statement i saw it, it was not a big thing but i saw the statement. A lot of democrats like to make that statement. Hes been trashed within his own
party. I felt bad for him because you look over the years hes virtually like the forgotten president. And i understand why they say that. He was not a good president. Look at what happened with iran. That was a disaster. What iran did to him, they tied him up in knots. The reason Ronald Reagan probably became president. So, you know, its a democrat talking point. Yeah, please, go ahead. Jim. Yes, mr. President , if i could followup on the question about your comments with Vladimir Putin about russia meddling. You did seem to be joking there with the russian president. Are we taking that to be wrong . And what is it with your coziness with some of these dictators and autocrats at these summits . With Mohammed Bin Salman the crown prince of saudi arabia, when you were asked about the case of Jamal Khashoggi, you did not respond to that question were you afraid of offending him on that subject . No, not at all. I dont really care about offending people. I sort of thought youd know that. Well, you passed up an opportunity by the way, congratulations. I understand you have a book. Is it doing well . Its doing well. I want to see it. Send me a copy. No, i get along with everybody except you people, actually. I get along with a lot of people. I have a tremendous relationship with president xi. Nobody else would have the deal that we have. Were getting tens of billions of dollars from china coming in, and despite that were moving along towards something that could be very historic. But i get along with President Putin, with mohamed from saudi arabia. Look, i spoke to saudi arabia when the oil prices a year ago were getting very high. And i wasnt so nice. And i said youve got to get
some more oil into the system because whats happening is no good. And they did, and people are driving at, you know, very low numbers right now. In the old days youd have spikes where the gasoline went to 5 and more and it wasnt so good. But i also get along with people that would be perceived as being very nice. You have a lot of very nice leaders of countries wait a minute, i was with Prime Minister may today. I was with so many. You take a look, the new head of australia, look at japan. Abe, Prime Minister abe is fine theyre all fine. Some are stronger than others, some tough than others. It i may though, mr. President , on the case of Jamal Khashoggi you have a lot of journalists in this that reject to be the saudi governments assassination and dismembering of a journalist. And when you were given the
opportunity to call Mohammed Bin Salman out on that you did not do it. Did you do it privately, and do you agree that it is despicable for a government to kill a journalist . Yes, i do. I think its horrible or anybody else, by the way. But i think its horrible. And if you look into saudi arabia you see whats happening. 13 people or so have been prosecuted. Others are being prosecuted. Theyve taken it very, very seriously and they will continue to. Im very unhappy about that whole event. And right now in saudi arabia theyre prosecuting additional people. Theres a lot of things happening. At the same time i will also say and nobody said nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of saudi arabia. I will say i spoke to his father. Jim, i spoke to his father in
great length. Theyve been a terrific ally. Theyre creating millions of jobs in this country. Theyre order not only Military Equipment frut 400 billion worth and actually even more than that over a period of time worth of Different Things. And with that being said im extremely angry and unhappy about a thing like that taking place. But as of this moment more than 13 people are being prosecuted, and i hear the number is going to be going up. But its a good question. Yes, please. Thank you, mr. President. With shanghai media group. Very quickly you note the further escalations of Trade Tensions with china, and cuyou share some details with your interaction with president xi this time . And also if i may another quick question on north korea. Do you think its possible there will be a third oneonone summit with chairman kim within
this year . It might happen tomorrow. We wont call it summit, we might call it handshake. I wouldnt mind doing it at all. Im literally visiting the dmz and so but i will for your question about president xi, hes a brilliant leader and brilliant man. You know better than i hes probably considered to be one of the great leaders in 200 years in china, and we just have a very hes strong, hes tough, but hes good we have a very Good Relationship. And i said, you know, we cant have it where the United States loses this kind of money for the privilege of building up china. It has to be a fair deal. And he understands that. But as you said nobody ever came to us. Its true, no other president came to him. M presidency could be a lot easier not only for that but many other reasons. Its a point in time. I have a chance to do things nobody else has ever done. So were making a deal with china or were attempting. And if we dont well go back into, you know, we have a tremendous right field of tremendous money that would be coming into our country. But i have a feeling over a period of time, and again im not rushed and i told him that i want to get the deal right. Its extremely i wouldnt even say complicated but very intricate. But in the meantime i think our farmers are going to end up being the great beneficiary. And what i did with the farmers because they did lose a certain amount of money, i went to sonny perdue our Secretary Of Agriculture and said how much money in the best year did china spend on our farms, in our farms buying . He said the best year, about 16 billion. I said, okay, well were taking in much more than that now every year in tariffs. And i took 16 billion out of those tariffs and essentially out of those tariffs, and were distributing it among farmers who have been hurt because theyve been used as a pawn so that china could get a good deal. But in the end the farmers are going to be the biggest beneficiary. But ive made up for the fact that china was, you know, targeting our farmers because they know the farmers like me and i like them. I love them. And they sort of love me, i guess, when you get r